Capacity development and technology transfer are critical components in enhancing the generation and use of data and information for environmental monitoring, particularly in regions like Central Asia. This area faces unique environmental challenges, including water scarcity, land degradation, and climate change impacts. To address these issues effectively, it is essential to build local capacities and facilitate the transfer of appropriate technologies that can improve data collection, analysis, and dissemination.
UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is leading a project that will provide Tajikistan access to full land cover and land use categorization and mapping of their respective territories, including terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and information from existing monitoring networks. This information will inform national State of Environment Reports, sustainable management of natural resources, address transboundary environmental issues, and report to the SDGs and major MEAs. Information technology - hardware and software - and institutional and human capacity will be built to operate and maintain these tools and technologies (Geographical Information Systems) through a dedicated training programme rolled out by the Russian Federation and UNEP experts. A digital atlas of the environment will be developed and produced which will allow the analysis and assessment of environmental change in the key domains of water, land, and biodiversity and will lead to the production of data flows, development of indicators, generation of statistics and production of pilot water and land accounts.
Overall objective / Specific objectives:
The main objective of this agreement is to support the UNEP Europe Office and our project partners (Moscow State University and Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences) in implementing the project in Tajikistan. For the successful delivery of this project, strong support is required from the national partners to oversee in-country liaison, national activities related to the implementation of the project, national technical assistance in relation to data, assessments and governmental review of draft products and services, management and full participation of relevant stakeholders, to ensure the inputs to the project are robust and the outputs are incorporated into the environmental monitoring and management processes within the country, as well as ensuring the Committee for Environmental Protection under the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan approval at all the relevant steps.
Target groups: Committee for Environmental Protection under the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, IT specialists, data-driven specialists, research institutions, universities, youth organizations, and media.
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Coordination of national experts.
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Providing in-country support for capacity building and technical assistance to the project partners.
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Supporting the development of the online digital atlas.
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Organizing ground-truthing activities.
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Providing in-country support for technical missions for training on water and ecosystem/land accounts.
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Providing in-country support with training workshops on the Atlas, Geoportal and training materials.
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Facilitating the handover of the relevant IT equipment and datasets for national use (Geoportal) to the main governmental partner.
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Facilitating and coordinating the national launch of the Atlas with the participation of high-level policy and decision-makers.
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Management, oversight and quality assurance